Throughout the summer and fall artist Nick Cave will be dancing in the streets of Detroit in his whimsical 'soundsuits.' For Cave's city-wide takeover for Here Hear, the artist is staging participatory performances including HEARD Detroit, a restaging of his 2013 HEARD•NY Grand Central Terminal performance. In Detroit, Cave will dance not with professionals, as he did in Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall, but with 60 high school students. In a 7,000 square foot exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum, the museum of his alma mater, Cave is also showing the largest collection of his work of sculptural soundsuits, video, and paintings, to-date.
Nick Cave has taken the Detroit area by storm with "Here Hear," a much-anticipated exhibition of his ornate Soundsuits and other newly-commissioned artworks at the Cranbrook Art Museum in the suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.The exhibition includes a variety of summer happenings like dance labs, performances, educational programs, and a forthcoming book called Greetings From Detroit.While Cave's enigmatic, otherworldly Soundsuits are as vibrant as ever, there's one that holds an especially timely message: TM 13 was created in 2015 in memory of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager who was fatally shot by former neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman in 2012.
Like much of America, Chicago-based artist Nick Cave watched the 1991 video of the LAPD beating Rodney King. King's mortality and fragility scared Cave so much that he immediately went to the studio and began creating a form of protection. The wearable suit of armor made of twigs marked the beginning of Cave's now-renowned series of soundsuits. Prior to the L.A. riots the artist made large-scale paintings, but since then he has become a public performer who grapples with blackness, sexuality, and the idea of one's body. This weekend, Cave embarked on a series of new performances and saw the opening of his 7,000-square foot retrospective, "Here Hear," at the museum of his alma mater, Cranbrook Academy of Art, just outside of Detroit."The soundsuits have taken on a life of their own," Cave says of the project's 25-year duration. The bright whimsical sculptural works have grown alongside the artist's practice and are as much about creative expression as they are Ferguson, or Charleston, South Carolina; they have evolved from a form of protection to represent a type of dreamy confidence that pushes the boundaries of visibility.
Photo Gallery of 82 photos by Christopher M. Bjornberg.
A gallery of 25 photos by Jeannette Fleury.
Colorful, inventive and captivating are but a few of the words to describe Nick Cave's bold new exhibit, "Here Hear" at the Cranbrook Art Museum going on June 20 through October 11, 2015. Join Detroit Public Television (DPTV) as we bring this incredible exhibit and various related events, including Cave's visit with students at the Detroit School of Arts to our viewers on-air and online.
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI - A months-long, expansive solo art exhibition from renowned sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave opens Saturday at the Crankbrook Art Museum."Here Hear," a 7,000-square-foot solo exhibit, will be featured at Cranbrook until October 11. The multi-room exhibit features a big collection of Cave's famous "Soundsuits."The sewn, beaded and extravagantly decorated suits are the focus, pieces Cave said hide the artist and transmit a pure, potent message.
Nick Cave is a prolific artist and dancer, famous for his sculptures called soundsuits, which he often stages in public spectacle. The artist conceives some as fragile sculptural totems, and others as wearable performance suits designed for sound, mobility, and dance. Though influenced by a vibrant palette of African art, armor, found objects, fashion, and textile design, the origin of the soundsuit is rooted in social critique. Cave first created a suit in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating in 1991, envisioning an emotional shield that protected one’s race or gender while still expressing individuality. As Cave’s artwork began to resonate with vast audiences, the artist saw the soundsuits as powerful agents to capture the public imagination on a monumental scale. Cave’s artistic practice now advocates the vital importance of collective dreaming, which he actualizes through large-scale performances.
Tagged: Mutalart.com, Nick Cave
Read MoreA new exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum features a collection of more than 30 sculptural Soundsuits by Nick Cave, an artist whose reputation has steadily grown in recent years.Sometimes confused with the Australian musician who shares his name, Cave earned a graduate degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills in 1989. Now chairman of the Fashion Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he’s known for his elaborate costume/sculptures. Once trained as a dancer with Alvin Ailey in New York, he uses the Soundsuits in performances art pieces.
THE WEEK’S TOP NEWS COVERAGE from around the web featuring artists Nick Cave, Gordon Parks, Noah Purifoy, Mark Bradford, Mickalene Thomas and designer Duro Olowu. T MAGAZINE talks to Chicago-based artist Nick Cave about “Here Hear,” his first solo exhibition in Michigan at the Cranbrook Art Museum. An alumni of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, which is outside of Detroit, Cave has been staging pop-up performances around the city since April. In “Nick Cave Revisits Detroit, Soundsuits in Tow,” the artist says: “Thank God for the city. I got here and I was the sole black person, so Detroit saved my life. I became connected to this circle of creative people.”
39221 Woodward Ave Box 801
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303
248.645.3323
artmuseum@cranbrook.edu
Copyright © 2024 Cranbrook Art Museum. All rights reserved. Created by Media Genesis.
